Former Vodafone India boss Marten Pieters was put on negotiation duties for the deal, with group CEO Vittorio Colao expected to hold a conference call addressing the merger with the company’s business heads next week.

Vodafone India and Idea Cellular have both been adversely affected by the entry to Reliance Jio into the Indian market in September last year, with Idea registering its first ever quarterly net loss in the third quarter. Jio’s free voice & data offer has forced the hands of rivals, with Idea lowering rates by 10.6% in the fourth quarter as well as slashing its mobile data rates by 15.2%.

The Vodafone-Idea merger would result in an operator with almost 400 million mobile subscribers, putting it well ahead of current market leader Bharti Airtel, which takes a 25% share of the market with 264 million. At the end of 2016, Vodafone had a 19% share with 203 million subscribers, while Idea was at 18% with 189 million. Jio meanwhile has accrued 100 million subscribers in just five months.

Although Vodafone and Idea largely hold spectrum in different service areas, there are five telecom circles where the merged Vodafone-Idea entity would be in violation of caps on subscribers, spectrum and revenue share.

India has strict regulations on M&A that prevent operators from holding more than 25% of the total available spectrum in any one service area, and more than 50% of the spectrum in any particular band in a service area. In addition, any one operator cannot have a share of more than 50% by either revenue or subscribers in a specific region.